


Ordinary Saints

by lamardeuse



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-22
Updated: 2010-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamardeuse/pseuds/lamardeuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're not a saint, and this isn't a miracle. This is - us."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ordinary Saints

**Author's Note:**

> Written for due South Flashfiction on Livejournal (miracles challenge).

“A miracle. Lord bless us, it’s a miracle.”

“Oh, geez,” Ray sighed. “Not another one.”

A crowd was rapidly assembling in the alleyway behind the Dunkin’ Donuts near the Loop, despite the best efforts of the plainclothes boys to hold it back. The people composing it belonged to assorted races and ages, but they had one common trait.

“They’re all whack jobs.”

“Ray! That’s—uncharitable,” Fraser chastised. “There’s no call to question these people’s mental stability.”

“No question about it, Frase, these people are ready for the men in the white coats. I mean, come _on_ already. This is the fifth one in four weeks.”

“And the pattern is accelerating. It’s only been three days since the last one was found in Cicero.”

Ray sniffed. “Great. We got us a serial painter.”

Fraser squinted at the wall and sighed. “It would appear so.” He trailed a finger over one of the black marks, then touched the tip briefly to his tongue. “Latex, just like the others. This one hasn’t even completely dried.” He took a brief, nonchalant survey of the crowd, then turned back to his partner.

Ray’s gaze rose heavenward. “‘O Lord, why do You see fit to send me this case, in which I must prove that the face of your Son is _not _showing up on the scuzzy back walls of donut shops all over Chicago, and that furthermore this is _not_ evidence of the coming Apocalypse? Send me a sign, O Lord.’”

A middle-aged woman with a really bad dye job who’d been standing nearby overheard their conversation and started toward them, waving a Bible in front of her like a weapon. “How can you doubt the evidence of your eyes?” she screeched. “This is the work of angels!”

Ray flung an arm out to point at the dingy brick. “It’s the work of Sherwin Williams, lady. And it seems I recall that _no one was talking to you._ So could you please go back to your praying over there and leave the nice policemen be?”

The woman recoiled as if struck and backed up until she was a safe distance away. Fraser watched her retreat with dismay. “Why is this bothering you so much?” he asked quietly, eyes on Ray’s agitated face, his taut, almost vibrating body.

“It sucks, that’s why it’s bothering me,” Ray spat. “It sucks that this yahoo is preying on people, goin’ after their—wanting to believe in something. It sucks that people are so desperate for miracles that they’ll swallow this. And it sucks that it’s our job to tell them it’s all a goddamned lie.”

Fraser regarded the assembled throng, their heads now bowed in silent prayer. “Agreed,” he said wearily. “But I’d also add—” He cut himself off abruptly, his eyes fixing on something or someone in the crowd.

“What?” Ray demanded, but Fraser shook his head minutely, and it was enough of a signal for Ray, who turned slowly and followed the line of Fraser’s gaze without drawing undue attention to himself.

About fifty feet away in the thick of the crowd stood a young man, his ultrashort hair making him resemble a monk or a prisoner, Ray wasn’t sure which. His head was bowed like the rest of them, but his lips were curved in a secret smile that raised the hackles on the back of Ray’s neck. He concentrated on the face, and saw—

—a faint smudge of black paint high on one cheekbone.

Bingo.

He felt Fraser’s eyes on him, and gave a minute jerk of his head to the right, signaling the direction in which he wanted the other man to go. Without debate or confusion, Fraser began working his way around the back of the crowd, while Ray pretended suddenly that he really, really wanted to get up close and personal with the face of Our Lord Jesus Christ painted on the Dunkin’ Donuts wall.

Within three minutes, it was all over but the praying.

  


    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
The next day, the headlines broke: _Chicago PD, with Aid of RCMP, Solve Miracle Mystery_

The day after, more headlines: _Chicago Police Refuse to Grant Media Access to Arresting Officer_

The next day: _Church Group Storms Canadian Consulate_

And the day after that: _Cubs Lose Again_

  


    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

Somewhere between the second and third headline, Ray and Fraser ended up in the middle of Minnesota, in the remote cabin where Welsh disappeared to when he didn’t want anyone to find _him._

“Look on the bright side,” Fraser said as he laid his small overnight bag on top of the dresser. “The fellow at the grocery store said there’s excellent fishing in this lake.”

“I hate fishing,” Ray grumbled, stretched out on the bed with his arms flung out on either side of him. “Fish are slimy.”

“In actual fact—” Fraser began, but he was cut off by the chopping motion of Ray’s right hand. Sighing, he crossed the room to stand over Ray’s supine body, studied the fan of his sun-bleached lashes where they lay against his cheeks.

He started when Ray’s eyes flew open. “You believe in ‘em, Frase?”

Fraser’s eyebrows rose. “Fish?”

“No, smartass, miracles. Miracles, you believe they happen?”

Fraser thought about it. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “The ecclesiastical belief is that miracles no longer occur in modern times.”

Ray snorted. “Try to convince somebody of that sometime. Everything’s a friggin’ miracle these days. You win at bingo, it’s a miracle. You miss getting squashed by a bus, it’s a miracle. You fall in love—” his eyes flickered over Fraser’s face, then away “—it’s a  goddamned miracle.”

Suddenly inexplicably tired, Fraser found himself sitting on the edge of the bed. “I suppose…that everyone wants to feel as though they have been in contact with the divine at some point in their lives. Especially considering that most of us live wrapped up in the world of the profane, cut off from our souls—and the souls of others.”

Ray pushed himself up on his elbows and stared at him. Fraser stared back. After a moment, Ray’s tense gaze softened, and he chuckled.

“Wow,” he said, an easy grin splitting his face. “When you get philosophical, you get philosophical.”

The rage slammed into him, clouding his vision. “I’m sorry,” he said tightly. He made to rise, but was stopped by a grip of iron enclosing his right wrist.

“No, whoa, wait a minute, I didn’t mean it—” Ray shook his head. “Christ, I always do this wrong.” His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Just—I been thinking about it a lot, the last couple of days. Thinking about what I believe in, and what I don’t, and whether or not I should.”

Fraser frowned. “Should what?”

Ray’s gaze locked with his. “Believe,” he murmured.

The fingers wrapped around Fraser’s wrist shifted, and Fraser felt a gentle stroking against his pulse point. He closed his eyes, concentrating hard on suppressing the shudder threatening to shake his body apart from within.

“Don’t,” he managed. “Please.”

“I was wrong,” Ray said softly, and then Fraser felt the bed shift and dip, and Ray’s heat was close now, nearly as close as it had been that night three weeks ago when everything fell apart, when he’d seen the truth in Fraser’s eyes—and run.

“See, I don’t believe in miracles any more,” Ray rasped, his lips against the side of Fraser’s jaw, “and so I figured there wasn’t any way it could work. I thought, what does a saint like you want with a broken-down—”

“I’m not,” Fraser protested, eyes still shut, “and _you’re_ not—”

“I know that, I know,” Ray soothed, nuzzling the hollow under Fraser’s ear. “I know. You’re not a saint, and this isn’t a miracle. This is—us.” He pressed a kiss to Fraser’s cheek, and Fraser loosed the shudder inside him. “Two ordinary souls. Yeah, I like that. Two ordinary souls tryin’ to find a way to wade through the profane, to get to—each other.”

“Ray—” Fraser moaned, helplessly, and then Ray’s mouth moved to cover his, closing the distance between them. And much later he drifted off to sleep with the sound of Ray’s strong, steady heartbeat in his left ear, and dreamed perfectly ordinary dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> First published April 2004.


End file.
